March 12, 2020

But This Is Wondrous Strange | Week 10

Week the 10th

Here we are, back on the electronic horse! I feel compelled to start off these things with a weather report, which is almost pointless once it’s published. But it was raining again, before the clouds reluctantly made way for sun, and I was happy about it. A wet city is my Camelot, my Valhalla, my literally shining city on a hill—or at least a series of slopes. Before moving here, I didn’t know downtown Portland generally cascades (hanh?) down from the southwestern hills that encompass Forest Park. This has completely thrown me for the past year-and-a-half, because I got very used to living in the L.A. basin, which is bounded on the north by the Hollywood Hills and then the San Gabriel mountains. So I think of “uphill” as north, and “downhill” as south, and it’s the opposite here. Downtown slopes up to the hills from the river. If I say, “it’s just up the street,” I mean uphill, but the convention is that north is up, so I just confuse the natives. I’m easily confused, but that’s no reason to foist it on anyone else.

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State of the Art

When I was writing a daily blog post, it was most often about aspects of making or experiencing art. But I’ve come to a place of stasis, more or less. I want to be making things, visual works, but I feel in a rut. I’m sure part of the problem is that I’ve moved into the digital without some physically accessible analog. My stuff in art school was on paper, canvas, wood panel. You could hang it on walls, and there was only ever one of them. Approaching digital drawing and painting, though, I had decided I was no longer satisfied with Stuff on a Wall. Digital creation -> digital presentation. I think this imaginary integrity is getting in the way of the work and any progress forward, however. I need things for people to buy, stickers or posters or prints or anything that can be held, and—let’s face it—hang on a wall.

In order to create things, you need a good diet of stuff to consume and remix. Put aside the gross bodily connotations for a second, because I think it’s true: you’re a better creator when you’re taking in work you’re inspired and moved by. Writers should be constantly reading, filmmakers should be watching movies, musicians obsessed with songs and sounds, and artists of the visual variety should be looking at art.

But, for the direction I want to go, I don’t know who to follow. I’ve always loved illustration, and illustrators like Claire Wendling, Kim Jung Gi (a new find and it’s mind-blowing to watch him work), and when I was doing comics I admired Paul Pope above everyone else.¹ Online, I follow a lot of concept artists working for game companies and film & TV. It’s fun, and I love seeing in-progress and loose work more than finished and perfected things. I like a lot of posts on Instagram and Pinterest and such, but only a couple artists (looking at you, Ian Cheng) are in the zone I want to occupy. It’s, I don’t know, something else. Help, if you have links, I’m all-in and ready. Perhaps I should have been a writer. Perhaps I should still be a writer, but I haven’t ever been able to stop looking longingly at the brushes, digital tablet, guitar, and mixing board in the corner, so here we are at square zero again.

For a while it seemed productive—or fruitful, if that word rubs you harshly—to just do something, but something isn’t a project and isn’t necessarily working toward something. In the end, a little piece or practice each day is good, but adding a row of stitches to the sweater-in-progress is better.

I try to take solace and encouragement from this, searching for the next thing. It is, I think, valuable to believe you can still start the thing you want to do, that you’re never too old.

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Hey, Sandworms…Ya Hate ‘Em, Right?

Some friends, my boyfriend, and I have started a re-read (or in one case, a read) of Frank Herbert’s Dune. We set up a text messaging group to discuss it as we go, a virtual book club, but exchanges are running freely chapter-by-chapter, instead of waiting a week to discuss. Although it’s just the beginning, it’s been fun and exciting to have impressions and interpretations bouncing around. I’m trying to make this a careful journey, a close read, since I’ve had a tendency to rip through books to get them done. This is a chance to savor Herbert’s words and world, and see it through some different eyes as I go.

One of the first things that jumped out was that Dune doesn’t waste time. We’re thrown 20,000 years into the future on page one, and concepts and terms are hurled with dizzying casualness. Paul’s look, demeanor, position, and peril are well established by the end of that first chapter (they’re all unnumbered). He’s the boy hero so many YA titles want to have, but so often fail, and he is us, despite no small amount of arrogance.

I’m more sympathetic to the Reverend Mother this time, and more aloof with Jessica. This is a curious and unexpected experience, and I haven’t had such a changed view on a re-read of any novel I can think of. I’ll update as we go.

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Link time? Link time.

• Did you catch David Byrne’s joyous numbers on Saturday Night Live?
• I did some discovering and rediscovering this week. New to me is Jason Isbell, who I previously only knew as a lyric in a Father John Misty song. I’m sad it took me so long, grateful I found such a powerful songwriter.
• Since I mentioned him above, it’s beautiful and mesmerizing to watch Kim Jung Gi draw for an hour. Bonus sketchbook pages at the end!

Pax Exeunt!